


Here Comes the Sun

by Regency



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, Alternate Universe, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Gen, Kid Fic, Parental fluff, Pining, Team as Family, Temporary Sam/Pete
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-16 19:15:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29458839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Regency/pseuds/Regency
Summary: AU season 8. When a wayward wish on an alien world leaves Sam with a new baby, Jack questions just where he fits in.
Relationships: Samantha "Sam" Carter & Daniel Jackson & Jack O'Neill & Teal'c, Samantha "Sam" Carter/Jack O'Neill
Comments: 13
Kudos: 77
Collections: Stargate Winter Fic Exchange 2020-21





	Here Comes the Sun

**Author's Note:**

  * For [purplejellosg1](https://archiveofourown.org/users/purplejellosg1/gifts).



> For Purplejellosg1 who requested Sam/Jack and baby fic without a load of angst and with some fluff and maybe some teamfic. This is a take on that that is maybe different from what was expected, but I hope you love it!
> 
> Thank you to starrybouquet and her partner in crime koolkatfieri for organizing this event. Apologies for my lateness! I could not stop messing with this!
> 
> Title and lyrics from "Here Comes the Sun" by the Beatles.

**Heliolatry** \- [hee-lee- **ol** - _uh_ -tree] 

_noun_

1\. worship of the sun.

* * *

Sam Carter’s daughter burst into the universe on a single held breath, amid the dustless ruins of an alien world. One moment, she was an errant wish, an impossible what-if drifting through Sam’s thoughts as she and Daniel discussed Sam’s upcoming marriage to Pete Shanahan; and the next moment, she was real, a bundle of lanky limbs and flyaway hair, mewling in Sam’s arms.

Sam yelped and staggered backward under the weight of her shocking new burden. Teal’c steadied her from behind, and it was only Sam’s honed reflexes that kept her from dropping the child who’d appeared out of thin air.

“Colonel Carter, are you well?”

Sam didn’t respond, too entranced by this baby she was seeing for the first time, a girl according to her cursory examination. Sam couldn’t gauge the age exactly: the girl seemed to be older than a newborn but younger than a toddler, with neck muscles developed enough to support the weight of her own head whilst she still fit in the crook of Sam's elbow. Sam didn't trust her estimate beyond that. Mark's kids hadn’t been this little in years.

Daniel carefully took in the scene, having ceased his litany on marital customs at Sam’s shout. He pushed up his glasses to regard his poleaxed friends, as well as the squirming child Sam was suddenly holding. “Okay, there’s a baby. Why is there a baby?” ‘Where did the baby come from,’ he had the decency not to ask.

Sam looked up at Daniel, wide-eyed, dumbfounded. “I have no idea.”

But she did, deep down; she knew.

This was her daughter. _Their_ daughter.

* * *

Back at the SGC, Jack O’Neill was contemplating resigning his post just to escape the paperwork. Despite the orderly state of his desk, maintained by Walter's careful attention, Jack was in a perpetual state of drowning under purchase requisitions, mission reports, white papers, base-wide memoranda. Though Jack had been partially responsible for this stuff as Hammond's 2IC, that was a far cry from the weight of responsibility that came with being the Man. He'd quit the day he found somebody he trusted to do it better.

He was poking disconsolately at a slice of chocolate cream pie he'd ordered in lieu of lunch when the stargate began to spin.

"UNSCHEDULED OFF-WORLD ACTIVATION."

Jack sprung up from his desk and made for the control room, descending the spiral staircase at double-time speed. Half the SG teams were off-world with none scheduled to return in the next eleven hours. _This can't be good._ He braced himself for the next emergency.

"Who've we got, sergeant?"

"GDO code coming through now, sir." Jack glared at the titanium reinforced iris as though he could see which team waiting on the other side. "It's SG-1."

"Open the iris!" Jack tossed over his shoulder, already racing toward the gate room. The flagship team was less than a day into a three-day recon mission. _Just long enough to find trouble._ He swore and moved faster. 

He arrived at the gate room as Carter stepped through the gate, bookended on each side by Daniel and Teal’c. Jack scrutinized them one by one. _Everybody's walking. No blood. No gunfire. Ok, what's up?_

They met Jack at the base of the ramp, all of them strangely silent. Carter looked shell shocked where the other two were oddly pensive. Jack’s worry ratcheted up another notch.

“You guys are back early.”

“Yes, sir. There was an incident.”

“What kind of incident?”

Carter’s jacket let out a whimper. 

It was then that Jack noticed the BDU jacket bundled in her arms. He was torn between looking closer and stepping back.

“Carter, that had better be an alien puppy.”

His former second winced. “No, sir.” She pushed aside the folds of her olive green jacket to show him a kid. No, a baby. 

“Where did you get a kid? Please tell me you haven't started taking in strays again. We just got Daniel house-trained.”

"Hey!"

Carter shot Daniel and Teal’c pleading looks.

Daniel took the initiative. “She just appeared, Jack. Out of nowhere.”

“Teal’c, that true?” 

“It is, O'Neill.” He had a feeling something was being left out. He hated when his teams held back.

“Okay, get the kid to the infirmary. I want a full work-up on all four of you. Debrief in an hour.”

“Yes, sir.”

They trooped through the blast door in lock step. Still quiet. Worried. 

_A kid. This job gets weirder and weirder._

+

The debrief wasn't any better. 

"Run me through it again. You guys were doing what?"

"We were exploring the ruins of the fallen Solari Empire on PX7-592. Daniel Jackson was photographing the images on the stone obelisk while Colonel Carter collected soil samples and I stood guard."

"And then?"

"And then we were talking about things," Daniel hedged, "you know, making small talk to pass the time." He glanced quickly at Carter who'd been conspicuously close-mouthed thus far.

"You agree with this version of events, Colonel?" The use of her rank seemed to shake her out of her stupor.

"'Yes, sir. We were just talking."

"Okay," he drawled. There it was again, the feeling they were dancing around something they didn't want him to know. "Kids, I need you to level with me. I don't care what happened out there, but I need to know where that kid came from so I can make whatever arrangements need to be made to look after her. It's me, not the President. You need to let me help you."

Carter closed her eyes for a long moment. When she opened them she carefully avoided looking at him. There'd been a lot of that going around. "We were talking about my wedding, sir. Daniel had asked me if Pete and I were planning to have kids."

Jack sat back from the table. _Ah, that._ They hadn't wanted to remind him it was coming. As if he hadn't been counting down the days like a man awaiting execution. 

"Okay, fine. What does that have to do with…?" He gestured vaguely in the direction of the infirmary.

Daniel fiddled with his glasses. "Based on my preliminary translations of the script covering the granite altar and surrounding obelisks on PX7-592, it was a kind of wishing place."

Jack flicked his eyebrows in question when Daniel failed to elaborate. "And, so, but, therefore?"

"Well, it's a working theory at this point, but I think--" He cleared his throat. "I think the ruins perceived Sam's consideration as an immediate desire for a child and...gave her one," he concluded with a wry flourish of his hand. 

"It's a babymaker." That settled it, they were never going back there.

"No!" Daniel exclaimed in frustration. "Okay, yes, in this instance it made a baby, but theoretically it can make anything to fulfill the user's wish."

Jack couldn't begin to get his head around the implications of letting that kind of technology fall into the wrong hands. _Damn, that means we're going back. D'oh!_

"So if I'm jonesing for a really elaborate roast beef sandwich…," he joked purely to hear Daniel growl in frustration. 

" _Jack,_ focus!"

"I'm focusing! I'm focusing on the lunch I missed." 

Daniel tugged at his hair. _Too easy._

For once, Carter wasn't giggling at his antics. _Ok, O'Neill, time to bring it in for a landing._

"Carter, how're you handling this?"

Carter looked up, startled. She'd been navel-gazing, her eyes the size of saucers in her pale face. Jack couldn't remember the last time he'd actually seen Carter scared. 

"Fine, sir." He didn't believe that for a second.

"Based on what Daniel's saying, I guess we can assume Shanahan's the father." Jack applauded himself for saying that without grimacing. He'd have to get used to it, he figured. Carter was starting a life with the cop; it made sense that eventually it might involve kids. He just thought he'd have more time to get used to the idea. 

Carter stared at him too long without answering the question. "Maybe. I--I'm not sure." She folded her hands on the conference table to keep from fidgeting. 

"Right," he said after a tense moment. It was clear she wanted to say more and even clearer she wasn't about to. "I'll get Brightman to run a DNA test, just to be on the safe side, and we'll go from there. Dismissed."

His colonel had hightailed it out of the briefing room before Jack could get out of his chair.

Jack stopped off at the infirmary after he’d dismissed the rest of SG-1 to get themselves cleaned up and stand down for the night. There was a kid to see about. _Just what I need, a magically appearing alien baby._ If they started popping up every time a team went through the gate, they’d be up to their necks by next Tuesday.

The infirmary was in its usual state of controlled chaos as the medical staff balanced pre-mission check-ups with post-mission physicals. Jack had words with a couple of team leaders before he waded through the lines of queuing SG members snaking through the ward.

Brightman waved him off with an apologetic gesture on her way to her office with a young marine presenting with chronic gate sickness. Jack fought down a moue of sympathy. He was about to be told he'd been grounded on medical grounds. There was no chance of that kid going through the gate again.

Jack was saved from a wasted trip by a shrill cry issuing from a curtained off bed at the end of infirmary. 

Jack followed the sobbing to a harried nurse attempting in vain to soothe the baby from the gate room. Carter's baby, he reminded himself. The eyes were a dead giveaway.

"What's up?"

The nurse rocked the girl a little too clumsily for his comfort and before Jack made a conscious decision to do it, he'd plucked the baby from her arms. She was dressed only in a folded paper gown and an improvised diaper. She was shivering when he hugged her close.

"They're pretty overwhelmed out there, why don't I look after her while you give 'em a hand?"

The nurse looked like she might actually argue with him for all of a second. 

"Yes, sir," she relented, eventually. "Good luck."

Jack examined Carter's whimpering daughter when they were left alone. "You hear that? She wished me luck. You must be a worse patient than me."

The baby whinged, rubbing a tiny fist into her puffy eyes. She hiccupped, leaning into his shoulder to scrub her face on his shirt.

“Okay, kid, what’s the problem?"

“She hasn't stopped crying since she was brought in." Brightman had slipped inside the curtain while he wasn't looking. _Look alive. Can't have two Carters throwing you off your game. You just got used to one._

Jack jogged the baby in his arms when she began fussing anew. “Come on, no need for tears. It’s pretty boring around here at the moment, but I’m sure things’ll liven up before ya know it.”

She grunted her displeasure and snuggled into his chest, tucked right up under his chin. It was like kids knew where they’d be safest and sought that place out in anyone’s arms. _Missed that._

“See, not so bad now, huh?”

"You're good with kids."

“It’s the heartbeat.” He kept rocking her, rubbing gentle circles on her back. “I think she might be cold. Let’s get her wrapped up warm, huh?" He grabbed a blanket off the nearest bed. She was going along, agreeable with him where she'd protested the nurse's handling. "Hey, Doc," he called, keeping cool by the skin of his teeth. "Is it just me or are her lips turning blue?”

Brightman ducked to check, expertly darting closer to examine the child without displacing him. “Yes, sir. Damn it, I didn’t notice that. I should have noticed that. The air composition on the surface of PX7-592 is marginally different to that of Earth. It wouldn't bother you or me, but at her age--I should have realized. We need to get her on supplemental O2.”

“Get on it.”

“Yes, sir!”

Jack lifted the baby off the bed, forcibly ignoring how limp she was becoming and how painfully it reminded him of unresponsive children he'd carried in the past.

Jack’s continued to rock the distressed infant in his arms, tracking the rising action surrounding them in the infirmary. 

He kissed the top of her head and murmured a song to keep her calm and suppress his mounting panic. He couldn't let anything happen to her. _Hold on, kiddo. Hang in there. Do it for your mom._

_“Here’s comes the sun, do do do. Here comes the sun. And I say, it’s all right...”_

Brightman returned with a crib and a whole team of nurses to take her off his hands. "This way, General. We can take her from here."

"Okay." Jack handed her over, but he hated every moment of letting her go. 

+

The DNA results were hand delivered to Jack in the wee hours of the morning. He was in his office when they came, signing off on a backlog mission reports. He skimmed them by the dozen and didn't absorb a single detail until SG-1's latest crossed his desk.

Between paragraphs of technical notes and theoretical exposition, Carter had slipped in a confession: _I was thinking about the future, and there she was._

Jack couldn't have put it better. 

+

Jack let himself into the Isolation Room Three late in the evening after his last debrief the following day. The temperature had been adjusted upward to accommodate the infirmary’s youngest patient and the lights were dim but for a heart monitor and a star-shaped nightlight someone had scrounged from inside the mountain.

A small figure slept easily inside a crib covered by a clear plastic oxygen tent, undisturbed by the medical personnel entering periodically to check her vital signs. Brightman had ordered the tent to acclimate her to the oxygen levels on Earth that differed from the planet where she’d been born, for lack of a better word.

Jack rolled a stool over from the wall to sit beside the crib and watch the little girl sleep. Carter had called it right; she couldn’t have been more than a year old. She was lightly freckled from exposure to the strong alien sun and delicate as only small children seemed to be. Her hair was a wispy honey blonde and her nose turned up just at the end. The plastic ID band fastened on her wrist read ‘Baby SG-1.’

That was saying a mouthful. 

_Baby SG-1_ , he thought, ruefully. Jack had ordered Brightman to put a rush on the DNA tests, needing answers before he submitted to the Brass’s questions, the president’s louder questions, and Hammond’s exasperation. Babies had to come from somewhere, the SGC was no exception, and this one wasn’t any different. Genetically, Baby SG-1 was the offspring of Lieutenant Colonel Samantha Carter, Teal'c of Chulak, and Dr. Daniel Jackson. Pete Shanahan hadn't made the list. Jack didn't know what to do with that information. 

From the impassive astonishment of his best team, they hadn't known what to make of it, either.

Brightman’s contention that a child having three genetic parents was impossible was met with further blank stares. At the SGC, the impossible was nothing but another day of the week. She was still catching on to that. _Janet would have gotten it_ . Uncharitable as it was, Jack missed his old tormentor, his frequent partner in keeping his team in line, and Brightman wasn’t measuring up. Janet would have gotten what he was feeling now without having to ask. She would have gotten why couldn’t stay away when his teammates had scattered to the four winds like they couldn’t escape fast enough. _It's not just Carter's future that's changing._

“Tough luck, kid,” he whispered, not wanting to wake her. The baby huffed like she heard him anyhow and shoved her balled fists under her chin. “Just me and you in the meantime. Hope I’ll do.” She slept on peacefully, unaware what she was missing.

Jack could see his team in her face--his former team. They would always be his kids, even if the president shoved him to the very top of the food chain, as he threatened to do any day now. 

She had Daniel’s eyebrows. They twitched as she slept as though she was trying in vain to express six opinions at once. Her cheekbones were all Teal’c, as was the light brown tint of her skin. The rest of her, though, he recognized immediately. The rest of her was Carter. The shape of her nose and her heart-shaped face. The golden blonde locks and the wide blue eyes dancing under translucent eyelids as she dreamed.

Baby SG-1 turned her head toward him and stilled with a sigh.

She was the inconceivable daughter of the best friends he’d ever had. She was perfect, and she didn’t have a name.

He’d have to see about that.

+

Daniel wasn’t asleep when Jack reached his lab. Somehow, Jack had known he wouldn’t be.

“How did I know you’d be awake?”

“Lucky guess?” Daniel replied, the false brightness he was reaching for just eluding him.

“Nah.”

Daniel twiddled a pen and avoided Jack’s gaze. He’d been avoiding Jack since the DNA test results came in, the same as the others. Jack had a feeling he knew why but he wanted to hear Daniel say it.

Jack draped himself over the back of a cluttered chair to watch his friend fiddle. “What’s eating you?”

Daniel manipulated images of the alien ruins on his computer monitor aimlessly. Jack had spent years watching Daniel examine photographs for translation; he knew when he was faking.

“What makes you think something’s bothering me?”

“It’s five to midnight and you’re not in bed.”

Daniel shot him a dubious look.

“Okay, bad example. Whatever, you’ve obviously got something on your mind. Let’s hear it.”

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing.” Double negative be damned, Jack was getting to the bottom of this. There was a little girl in the infirmary with just about the best family a kid could ask for, but tonight all she’d had was him. That wasn’t like his team. “Why haven’t you been to see the kid?”

“The kid?”

“You know who I’m talking about. What gives?”

Daniel stared at the alien runes that had somehow produced Baby SG-1. Jack could tell he wasn’t seeing, he was thinking. He was brooding. When Daniel finally spoke, Jack was listening.

“I don’t know anything about kids. I didn’t even understand children when I was one.” Daniel laughed despite the lack of humor in the situation. Daniel hadn’t gotten to be a child long before he was an orphan whose only option was to raise himself.

“That doesn’t mean you can’t look after her. You look after half the known universe. Give it a try, I bet you’d be good at it.”

“You think so?” Jack had forgotten how much Daniel used to rely on him, rely on Jack’s faith in him. Daniel hadn’t needed that in years, even less since descending from a higher plane. _Some of that omniscience must have stuck._

“Yeah, Danny. You and Teal’c are the best dads a kid can have.”

“You’re not so bad yourself. You looked after me.”

Jack shook off the remark before an awkward silence could descend. Jack hadn’t been the father he should have been. If he had been, he’d still be a father now.

“Kid needs a name, Danny. We can’t keep calling her Baby SG-1. She’ll get a complex.” Babies needed names and family; they needed love.

“What do Teal’c and Sam think?”

“Haven’t asked them yet.” Jack didn’t bother asking why Daniel hadn’t talked to them. He could be as avoidant as the rest of them when there was something he didn’t want to talk about.

“What do you think?”

“Thought I’d let the brainiacs decide.” Teal’c was decades older than all of them, he definitely qualified.

Daniel gave up the pretense of finishing his translation and switched off his monitor. He pushed up his glasses to massage the bridge of his nose. “What are we gonna do, Jack?”

“We’ve found kids before-”

“Kids, Jack. Orphans. Harsesis!” The air stilled between them at the note of pained recollection entering his voice. Daniel exhaled, his eyes wild. Lost. “They’re always someone else’s child, Jack. She isn’t. This baby is _ours._ She’s…” The words caught in his throat. “I never thought I’d be a parent until Sha’re. It wasn’t even on my radar. I had my work, for all the respect it earned me. I had my theories, and then, I had the stargate. Before her, that was enough, and after her, there were no other options. But now, there’s this little girl who’s part me and not part Sha’re at all.” He swiped at his eyes. “That doesn’t seem right.” His eyebrows rose and fell, his features crumpling. “It’s not fair.”

Jack pulled Daniel to his side, rubbing his shoulder. Daniel’s grief burned through him the same as it had six years ago, the same as Jack’s grief for Charlie still burned in him. “It’s not fair, Danny boy, I know.” In a fair world, Charlie would be a grown man, Carter’s mom and Teal’c’s dad wouldn’t have died young, and Sha’re would be here filling the dark and dusty corners of Daniel’s world, maybe with their own kids by now. “But your daughter’s here, and she needs you. She needs her dad to teach her all about dead languages...and rocks.” He faked a shudder of distaste.

“Artefacts,” Daniel corrected out of habit.

“That’s what I said. Rocks.”

Daniel rolled his eyes and whined, “ _Jaack,_ don’t teach her to call them rocks. They’re artefacts that carry cultural significance.”

Jack gave Daniel a jovial slap on the back. “Right, culturally significant rocks.” He stepped back to give Daniel his space to pull himself together. “Come up with a name for Indiana Jones Jr.”

“Nefertiti,” Daniel offered, a cheeky smile threatening. The shadows had receded for another day.

Jack opened his mouth. “...maybe a different name.”

“Maybe in Abydonian,” Daniel mused aloud as he rose to grab a reference text from his shelf. Jack left him to brainstorm.

+

Jack found Teal’c meditating in his quarters. White candles covered just about every surface of the modestly decorated room where Teal’c sat on the floor.

“So, how are you handling this whole thing?” No point in beating around the bush. He knew Teal’c was waiting for him to start.

“This ‘thing’ being The Child?”

Jack cringed at the note of censure in his voice; he could almost hear the capital letters. “Sorry, bad choice of words.” He lowered himself to the desk chair in the corner that was conveniently devoid of candles. “Being a dad again, how’s that going? Any thoughts you wanna share?” Talking wasn’t Jack’s thing, normally, but it wasn’t his good he was after.

Teal’c lapsed into further contemplation. Jack let him. One thing the two of them had always had in common was a comfort with silence. They didn’t make small talk for its own sake, they didn’t need it. Jack was repositioning his legs to alleviate the growing stiffness in his knees when Teal’c replied.

“I did not have as active a role in Ry’ac’s upbringing as I would have liked due to my service to Apophis and then my service to Earth. I did not expect I would be a father again. Until today, I did not believe I deserved the chance.”

“What about now?”

Teal’c breathed deeply. “I realized that children do not concern themselves with what their parents deserve. They do not ask whether we are worthy of them before they are born. They are simply born and we have a responsibility to care for them and love them.” He softened. “It would be my privilege and honor to do for this child what I could not do for Ry’ac.” A smile danced at the corners of his mouth. “I have never had a daughter. If Colonel Carter is any indication, I think I will enjoy it.”

“Yeaaah, you’re gonna spoil her rotten.”

Teal’c nodded in serene amusement. “As is only right.”

“You can say that again.” Charlie had been a little overindulged himself and Jack couldn’t bring himself to regret it. He hoped Charlie’s short life had been a happy one. When Jack came out of his fond reminisces, Teal’c was watching him with knowing sympathy.

“How are you handling these events, O’Neill?”

“My best team having a kid together off-world? That’s not even the weirdest thing in my inbox right now.” It was probably the second weirdest. He’d had years to acclimate to the weirdness of the SGC. He was unfazed.

“Your team having a child without you does not bother you?” Leave it to Teal’c to aim right at the heart of the matter. A year ago, it might have been the four of them instead of three.

Jack shrugged. “You guys are doing everything on your own. That’s what happens when somebody gets promoted. My job is making sure you guys are okay with everything that’s happening.”

“I am fine. Are you?”

“Sure. Nobody deserves a second chance at family more than you three.”

“O’Neill, we _all_ deserve a second chance.”

Jack rose, stretching, from his chair. He ached everywhere; he couldn’t be sure if it was the tension or just age catching up to him. “Not all of us, T.” He knocked on Teal’s little used desk. “I was just telling Daniel, she needs a name since it looks like she’s sticking around for the long haul.”

“What do you suggest?”

“Not my call.”

“Will you not be an active participant in her upbringing, as you have been for Cassandra Fraiser?”

“Well...yeah, I guess.” Jack’s relationship with his old team had changed in the months since his promotion. Gone were the regular team nights at his place and reluctant trips to hockey games for Daniel or chess games with Teal’c. His relationship with Carter, already strained by years of enforced distance, had only become more perfunctory. “If you want me there.”

“Then, your opinion on the child’s name is of consequence.” Teal’c’s tone brooked no further argument.

Jack rubbed the back of his head. It was subtly throbbing, promising a hell of a headache when he had time to let it take root. “I dunno. Maybe run it by Carter and Daniel first.”

Teal’c’s raised eyebrow was uncharacteristically easy to read. “They will agree.”

“Maybe.” He patted Teal’c on the shoulder. “Congrats on the new baby. You’re gonna do great.”

“We will.”

Jack left Teal’c to his candles and his contentment. _Yeah_ , Jack thought. _They’re gonna be alright._

+

Carter, as it turned out, was harder to pin down than either Daniel or Teal’c had been. He checked her lab and found it dark; then the office she never used after becoming team leader, the control room, the gym, and the almost deserted commissary. He briefly considered checking her base quarters before thinking better of it. This last mission had sent the rumor mill into overdrive, according to Walter. The last thing Carter needed was to have her CO showing up at her quarters in the middle of the night. 

_Bet Shanahan wouldn’t like that._ Jack shoved the thought down deep where it belonged. He wasn’t about to begrudge the shrub going after the woman he wanted, not when it was Carter. Not when she wanted him to catch her. If she thought he was good enough to marry, Jack wasn’t going to think twice about it.

He wasn’t going to admit thinking twice about it.

Knowing he had a sleepless night ahead with eight teams off-world and a half-written status update on the baby burning a hole in his out tray, Jack headed back to the infirmary. This was the most time he’d voluntarily spent in medical since they’d lost Janet. It still felt wrong to see anyone else in charge. He kept expecting to hear the patter of her regulation heels rounding the corner, her soft yet firm voice issuing orders she expected to see obeyed. _You were one of a kind, Doc._ The losses were beginning to take a toll on Jack.

He checked in with the night nurse for updates on injured personnel. One team had been caught in a firefight off-world, and two civilian scientists had been caught in a mudslide while on loan to a sister agency on Earth. They were all on the mend and healing well.

Having handled his necessary duties, Jack let his feet carry him back to Iso Room Three. The lights were still low, but not so low he couldn’t make out someone seated on the stool he’d vacated earlier. It was Carter, arms wrapped around her middle, apprehensively hovering over the sleeping girl she’d only just met.

Jack closed the door behind him. “Hey.”

Carter hopped to her feet, looking guilty. “Sir.”

He waved her off. “Come on, sit. It’s just us here.” He grabbed a chair from across the room to sit next to her. They watched the baby together. At some point, she started to suck her thumb and rolled over, sticking her diapered butt up in the air. Her nails were a little long, forming crescent moons at the ends of her fingers and toes. She was perfect.

Carter rubbed a bit of the plastic tent between her fingers. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to tell Pete about this.”

Jack didn’t know either. Shanahan was a touchy subject for him for obvious reasons. He wasn’t capable of being objective about any guy Sam Carter loved that wasn’t him. What he did know, however, was something about loving her.

He slipped his hand between the flaps of the oxygen tent and the slats of the crib to lay a hand on the baby’s back. “If he loves you as much as he says, loving her should be easy. If he can’t…” -- _he doesn’t deserve you_ , Jack thought, mutinously. How could he not love them both? Jack did and he’d only known Carter’s daughter a day.

“Accepting the daughter your fiancée has with three other men might be asking too much.” She laughed to cover her nerves. Jack saw through her; he’d had years to learn to read the signs of Sam Carter hiding her feelings, to disregard the misdirects she threw up like cover fire in moments of vulnerability. Carter felt exposed. He didn’t ask why it was him always doing the exposing.

“He knows you and the team are close.”

Carter averted her uncertain gaze. “It’s not Teal’c and Daniel he’s worried about, sir.” Carter surrendered to his influence and reached under the tent to touch the baby’s hair. “She’s gorgeous, isn’t she?” He’d been waiting for it to hit her, the awe of meeting her kid for the first time.

“Yup.”

“I wasn’t even sure I wanted kids, after I lost my mom. I used to think, ‘if it happens, it happens.’ And then after Jolinar, Janet said there was a chance I wouldn’t be able to have children at all. I figured, at worst it meant I wouldn’t be leaving a kid motherless if I died in the field. No kid should go through what I went through. Until Pete, I had made my peace with that. At least I thought I had.” She sniffed. She was holding back tears and Jack was pretending not to see. Not because he didn’t care, but because there was nothing he could do about it. He couldn’t hold her, not here. Not anymore. “I didn’t realize until he asked me to marry him how much I had wanted the option of being a mother, regardless of what I chose to do with it.”

Jack risked a hand on her shoulder, unable to stand seeing her so miserable. He touched her less than he used to, he knew that. It wasn’t by choice--he would never do anything but touch her if he could--it was by necessity. That wasn’t the relationship they had anymore. Whatever might have been between them before Pete Shanahan would never be. That didn’t mean he’d leave her hurting. Jack never could.

“Looks like you’ve got your miracle.”

Carter lit up with a smile that belied the tears in her eyes. “She is, isn’t she?”

“So…” He braced himself and took the plunge. “What are you gonna do?”

She shrugged. “Be a mom.” That easy. Carter made rocket science seem like the easiest thing in the world.

“She needs a name.” He felt like a broken record asking. His son hadn’t felt real until he scrawled Charles Jonathan O’Neill on the bottom of his birth certificate. He wanted that for SG-1. They had been family for years, but now it was official. They just had to see it. Baby SG-1 was that devotion brought to life.

“You pick.”

“You’re the third person to say that to me.” A clean dodge. Jack couldn’t pick, Jack wasn’t her dad any more than he was still a part of SG-1.

“Why not? You’re her dad, too.”

“Come on, Carter.” Jack hadn’t been there when the ruins they were exploring plucked an errant thought out of Carter’s head and made this kid. This perfect combination of his favorite people had nothing to do with him. _She’s better off._ The fact it was painful didn’t keep it from being true.

“No, sir.” The _sir_ was a fig leaf of decorum on her insubordinate tone. “There’s no outcome where you aren’t as instrumental in her upbringing as the rest of us. You should have some input.” She looked around to make sure they were alone here and grabbed his hand. “We want you to. All of us.” She flushed contrary to her determined expression.

“The cop won’t like it.” Jack needed to remember he existed.

“He doesn’t have to stay. We’re a family. We have been since the first time we walked through the stargate as a team. He can choose to be part of that family or he can leave.” Jack wasn’t convinced the cop was going to have a choice in the matter. "Daniel said, he thought the reason she comes from the three of us instead of… me and someone else is because that person wasn't present. The device made do with the resources available."

The baby stretched in slumber, pudgy limbs starfishing in every direction across the mattress. _She’s gonna be tall._ Like Daniel. Like Teal’c.

"So if the cop had been there…"

Carter bit her lip. "It wasn't him I was thinking of having a family with. Teal'c and Daniel are already family to me, probably more than my own brother, but I wasn't thinking of them either."

Their eyes met, hers begging Jack to read between the lines. He started reading. 

She turned from him, allowing him a minute to get his head on straight _. She wasn't imagining a future with Shanahan._

“How can I love her already,” Carter asked, entranced by her daughter’s steady breathing. Jack squeezed the hand he was still holding, laced their fingers together so he could hold her closer.

“She’s yours, Carter. Why wouldn’t you?” He'd loved her soon as he knew her.

“That doesn’t explain Cassie.”

“Cassie’s ours, too. Sometimes, that’s just how it works.” Biology was only one way to make a family. SG-1 had never needed that.

“I can’t wait to hold her again.” Jack used to get the same itchy hands when it came to holding his son while he slept. His feelings for this one were no different. There was something about a sleeping baby that brought out his protective instincts.

“Won’t be long. Brightman said her immune system’ll be up to snuff in a few weeks and she can come out of here tomorrow if her oxygen sat improves.”

Carter grasped one of the baby’s small hands in hers. “I’m a mom,” she said again, seeming a little less afraid of the idea. If she could blow up a sun and overthrow false gods, she could raise a little girl to be as brilliant and fierce and kind as she was. Jack believed in her. He used to have dreams like that.

“You’re a mom. Congrats. You’re gonna be amazing.” He would have kissed her if he could. He’d had dreams like that too.

Her smile knocked the breath out of him.

“I’m happy it was you guys,” she confessed. “I couldn’t have picked better.” He did _not_ think about the cop. He wasn’t going to make her engagement his business. He couldn’t. Not unless she asked him to.

“The rumor mill’s gonna suck about this.”

“It’s always sucked for me.” She pointedly dropped the ‘sir.’ “At least this once I get to enjoy it.” Her daughter lifted her head and opened groggy blue eyes to regard them curiously. Carter leaned in close. “Hi, sweetie. Hi.” The baby caught a finger in her fist and babbled nonsense. She snared Carter’s heart and his, again, all at once.

Carter faced him head-on, her earlier doubt a memory. “Jack...she needs a name.”

Jack took in the baby’s bluebonnet eyes--her mother’s eyes--and her sunshine hair, her pointed chin and her dimpled rosy cheeks. The child of his best friends, his favorite people all rolled into one. His daughter, too.

“I have an idea.”

* * *

**_Four Months Later_ **

Sam let herself into Jack’s living quarters under the mountain after her post-mission check-up. She still needed to hit the showers, but she’d wanted to check on Jack and the baby first. Trips off-world left her homesick as never before. Daniel and Teal’c had called dibs on the locker room to let her have first crack at seeing their daughter; once they were all clean and off to dinner, all bets were off. _A daddy's girl three times over._

On entering the spacious officer's suite, she was struck first by the sound of laughter, her daughter’s laughter to be precise. She had a laugh unlike any of her parents, high and bright and joyful. Instantly recognizable. 

There was the scent of baby shampoo and bubble bath on the air, intermingled with Jack’s cologne. _Bathtime._ Sam smiled. It ranked just below bedtime as quality moments she hated to miss.

Beneath the baby’s laughter she could hear singing, warm and gruff, full of love. _Jack._

_“Here comes the sun, do do do. Here comes the sun. And I say, it’s all right.”_

Sam tiptoed to the attached bathroom to find Jack kneeling on a cushion beside the yellow baby bath where their daughter was clapping up a storm, her hair covered in suds. He carefully poured a cupful of mild water over her head, singing to keep a smile on her face.

She doubted she’d ever get used to coming home to this, to the man she hadn’t planned to let herself love and the daughter she hadn’t thought she’d have with three men she’d give her life for. She had wished for a family with someone she truly loved, in a way she could never have loved Pete, and she had gotten that wish. She had gotten everything.

Sam announced her presence with a soft, choked, “Hey.”

Jack greeted her with a grin that said _I love you_ and lifted their squirming baby girl up to see her. “Look, Sunny. Mom’s home.”

And she was.

  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I know this is probably pretty far cry from the expected, but I hope it was still enjoyable. I love the idea of a team baby and kind of touching on Jack’s feeling of exclusion from SG-1 when he made general. I also love the idea of Jack loving a kid because that kid is related to the people he loves most. SG-1 is a family, a chosen family. Stars don’t change that. Pete can’t change that.
> 
> I'm so so sooo out of practice writing SG-1. Please be patient as I try to find their voices again.


End file.
